Retailing can be an unpredictable business. This is especially true where fashion, fads or other volatile external factors drive purchasing decisions. Thus, for example, an article of clothing that is in vogue this month among teens may fall out of favor next month, only to become popular four months later among thirty-somethings.
To compensate for this, chain stores and other large retailers typically employ general merchandise managers (GMMs). These individuals are often responsible for setting overall merchandising, purchasing, pricing, and marketing strategies to improve the bottom line, e.g., in the face of changes in demand. GMMs are also responsible for allocating inventory for retail sites and making assortment decisions so that stock available throughout the buying season will meet but, preferably, not exceed demand.
Typically, a GMM (or other decision maker) is given an overall inventory budget from which, inter alia, to make purchasing and inventory allocation decisions, e.g., based on estimated sales, fashion trends, and current inventory levels. Often, those decisions are made on “gut feel” about how each retail site (e.g., store or department) and/or product is expected to fare in the upcoming season.
The art provides tools that can assist GMMs in this regard. Examples include commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,910,017, entitled “Inventory and Price Decision Support,” issued Jun. 21, 2005; U.S. Pat. No. 6,834,266, entitled “Clustering,” issued Dec. 21, 2004; and co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. Ser. No. 09/826,378, entitled “Assortment Decisions,” filed Apr. 4, 2001; U.S. Ser. No. 10/165,041, entitled “Markdown Management,” filed Jun. 7, 2002; U.S. Ser. No. 09/900,706, entitled “Price Decision Support,” filed Jul. 6, 2001; U.S. Ser. No. 10/861,772, entitled “Methods And Apparatus For Retail Inventory Budget Optimization And Gross Profit Maximization,” filed Jun. 4, 2004; U.S. Ser. No. 10/891,458, entitled “A Model for Optimizing In-Season Tactical Decisions,” filed Jul. 14, 2004; U.S. Ser. No. 11/158,264, entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Optimizing Markdown Pricing,” filed Jun. 21, 2005; the teachings of all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
However, even in instances where GMMs must determine the budget for a particular product (or site) based on such tools, they attempt to resolve the problem holistically. While a GMM might have a general idea of how popular a given product will be, the holistic approach can result in lost profit opportunities.
An object of this invention is to provide improved systems and methods for digital data processing.
Another object of the invention is to provide improved such systems and methods for use in retailing.
Still another object of the invention is to provide improved such systems and methods as improve opportunities to optimize total merchandise profitability.
Yet still another object of the invention is to provide improved such systems and methods as assist GMMs and other decision makers in their inventory assortment and pricing decisions.